Player's Reference: 3rd Security Forces Division "Death's Head"
The 3rd Security Forces Division is considered as one of the three inaugural formations of the Security Forces, along with the Prosek Guards and the America Division. Component units participated in the Tolkeen War, leading to subsequent division-scale expansion. Organization The division consists of three infantry regiments, a divisional brigade containing air defense, armor, artillery, engineering, reconnaissance, security, and signal battalions, and a full-time auxiliary brigade comprised of the unit's mutant animal auxiliaries, special-service troops, and penal battalion. Each of the infantry regiments (5th "Death's Head," 6th, 3rd Security Forces Regiments) is composed of three infantry battalions and a headquarters battalion containing regimental support units. The infantry battalions, in turn, each contain three to five rifle companies and a headquarters company. Each company contains three to five rifle platoons and a headquarters platoon. Platoons are commanded by lieutenants, and contain three to five rifle squads each led by a sergeant, in addition to a small headquarters section with platoon leader and orderly, platoon sergeant, radio operator, and medic. Squads are comprised of six to ten men each, divided in practice into two fire teams. The divisional engineering battalion breaks down similarly, though with a heavier vehicle component, and the divisional reconnaissance battalion mirrors the structure of a standard rifle battalion, without any artillery units and a higher proportion of dedicated marksmen. Typically the reconnaissance battalion does not operate in battalion strength, instead operating as squads or platoons as needed. The air defense and artillery battalions are each divided into four batteries, each containing between eight and twenty weapon systems. The regimental artillery batteries are similarly equipped, with one each of air defense and artillery assigned to each regiment. Battery strength depends on whether the battery is mechanized - fewer weapons, deployed further apart - or towed - more weapons deployed in dense formations. The air-defense battery is typically fully mechanized, resulting in smaller strengths but wider deployment. The divisional armored battalion is broken down into four companies of twenty tanks each, organized into four line platoons of four tanks and a headquarters platoon with two battle tanks and two recovery vehicles. Order Of Battle, 1 JUL 109 Approximate Ration Strength: 10,000 *Headquarters, 3rd Security Forces Division *Death's Head Brigade **Death's Head Air Defense Battalion **Death's Head Armored Battalion **Death's Head Artillery Battalion **Death's Head Engineer Battalion **Death's Head Reconnaissance Battalion **Death's Head Security Battalion ***Death's Head Intelligence Company ***Death's Head Military Police Company ***Death's Head Security Company **Death's Head Support Battalion *5th Security Forces Regiment 'Death's Head' *6th Security Forces Regiment *3rd Security Forces Regiment *Death's Head Auxiliary Brigade Mobile Re-Organization Following the Battle of Little Rock, the division was re-equipped as a mobile division. The 5th and 6th Regiments were equipped with helicopters and power armor; the 3rd was mounted in AFC-151 Deathbringer flying APCs, but not given power armor as not enough was available. The division acquired a second vehicle-only reconnaissance battalion, equipped fully with attack helicopters and unmanned vehicles. The armored battalion was re-equipped with Linebacker II heavy tanks, re-designed since 106 for reduced crew needs. At full strength, the battalion features 72 tanks and eight recovery vehicles. Order Of Battle, 1 OCT 109 *Headquarters, 3rd Security Forces Mobile Division *Death's Head Aviation Group **Death's Head Airlift Wing ***139th Airlift Squadron (DHT) ***205th Airlift Squadron (DHT) ***229th Airlift Squadron (DHT) **Death's Head Aviation Brigade ***1st Death's Head Aviation Squadron (Transport) ***2nd Death's Head Aviation Squadron (Transport) ***3rd Death's Head Aviation Squadron (Air Cavalry) **107th Tactical Bomber Squadron *Death's Head Brigade **DH Air Defense Battalion **DH Armored Battalion **DH Artillery Battalion (Mechanized) **DH Assault Engineer Battalion **DH Mechanized Reconnaissance Battalion **DH Reconnaissance Battalion **DH Security Battalion *Death's Head Auxiliary Brigade *Death's Head Support Brigade **DH Construction Engineer Battalion **DH Maintenance Battalion **DH Supply Battalion *5th Security Forces Mobile Regiment 'Death's Head' *6th Security Forces Mobile Regiment *3rd Security Forces Regiment Leadership Senior Police General Theodore Eckert commands the 3rd Security Forces Division. He has twenty-five years of service experience, mostly in Chi-Town’s political investigations detachment, though he spent the six years prior to the Tolkeen offensive running a series of labor and prison camps in Lone Star. During the Tolkeen war, he volunteered large portions of his guard staff to form an infantry battalion. At the time, he was Chief Inspector of the Labor Office in Lone Star, a position equivalent to an Army colonel; commanding a battalion, therefore, entailed a reduction in rank. Eckert’s battalion, originally intended for Quebec, was re-routed to Tolkeen just in time for the worst fighting of the 106-107 winter campaign. While Eckert had a well-deserved reputation for hard discipline, he also had a reputation, even in the Labor Office, of ferociously defending his charges from both outside and above. Eckert’s battalion sustained a 150% casualty rate during the campaign – it took more casualties than its initial strength, and its members regularly left aid stations early to return to their old unit. In April 107, Eckert was badly wounded in a bombardment; visiting him on his apparent deathbed, the Emperor himself took the extraordinary step of awarding the battalion the “Death’s Head” nickname and shield logo, then pulling them out of the line in May of 107 for restructuring at regimental strength. Even post-expansion, the 5th Regiment maintains the Death’s Head title. Eckert recovered fully, astonishingly requiring no replacement organs, and is one of a handful of wearers of the Crimson Heart with a gold bar, representing near-miraculous survival. Even in hot weather, he is rarely seen without his long black leather coat, and even on long marches, he typically wears high leather boots, very much looking the part of a high police official. Historical source: Theodor Eicke The seniormost enlisted member of the division is the full-replacement cyborg Carl Wentworth, once Eckert’s battalion sergeant-major and commander of the battalion for three days under intense fire while Eckert was believed dying. He is in many ways a stereotype, both of sergeants-major and of borgs, in that he is taciturn in the extreme and rarely has anything good to say about anyone. Wentworth’s voice was deep and grating before his body was nearly destroyed in the final assault on Tolkeen; now it is almost too low to be heard by humans. He makes mutant animals of all kinds uneasy, since there is a near-visible aura of restrained violence around him. Wentworth views it as his responsibility to keep disciplinary problems from reaching the General; any trooper who comes to Wentworth’s attention for discipline will regret it before the interview ends, and quite possibly for the rest of his life. The "conscience" of the division is Father Benedict Tatevasion of the Order of Saints Benedict and Francis of the Sword, who joined the unit from the Subiaco monastery in Arkansas during the movement from Little Rock back to Leavenwood. Tatevasion is tolerated by the thoroughly agnostic Eckert only because he is even more of a radical human supremacist and Earth-first believer than the General. Tatevasion is a gaunt, dark-featured man with no real affinity for people, but a burning belief in the rightness of the Coalition's cause. Tatevasion can be found off the battlefield in the ceremonial black cassock, white tabard, and chainmail of a Subiaco monk, with sword and shield, while on the battlefield, he generally wears a standard suit of Coalition battle armor. Equipment Leftovers Since the priority for new equipment remains the mainline Army, Navy, and the nascent Air Force, re-equipping police and SecFor units with the newest generation of hardware is still years away. As a result, these units are equipped a decade behind the rest of the Coalition States. Among other faults, the rate of mechanization for the SecFor troops is behind the rest of the CS military. Because the post-Tolkeen Coalition war machine is being equipped with a uniform standard vehicle fleet, it is very likely that this, at least, will change. After the Coalition States seized the city of New Kenora in 105 PA, a tremendous amount of Iron Heart Armaments’ inventory was still sitting in warehouses. The majority of this equipment was pressed into service for use by police and security forces during the Tolkeen war. As a result, there have been occasional conflicts between main-line and SecFor troops due to mistaken identity. The addition of IFF transponders to all former Iron Heart vehicles has reduced, but not eliminated, this. Special Acquisitions One of the benefits to being the world’s most feared (by some) and well-regarded (by others) secret police force is that acquiring even large volumes of unusual military equipment is fairly easy. The result is that General Eckert has bullied, cajoled, and outright stolen weapons that officially do not appear in the Coalition arsenal. There is a very good chance of encountering automatic grenade launchers, depleted-uranium ammunition, or backpack-mounted flamethrowers, for instance. None of these are stock Coalition weapons. Reorganization The Division's mauling in Arkansas led to it being re-equipped as a state-of-the-art mobile division, with current Coalition power armor and vehicles. They did not relinquish the old pre-rebuilding weapons, instead choosing to integrate them where needed. During the capture of Kingsdale, it is believed that the Division grabbed what it could from the city's thriving arms-manufacture and mercenary-supply industry. While General Eckert is incredibly strict on the use of regulation equipment now that sufficient regulation equipment is available, he does not care what is used as a supplement. Recruiting & Training Because they do not have the established track record of mainline Army units, the Security Forces divisions are forced to recruit both in direct competition with the Army, and by seconding from police and Army forces. Seconded personnel generally are sent because of disciplinary problems of some sort, though there are some highly motivated volunteers. Seconding The majority of early personnel in the Security Forces formations were seconded from other sources – Eckert drew his troops from labor camp guards and personnel of the Labor Office who wanted out of that service. Subsequent expansions of the unit have pulled troops from anywhere ranging from police services that had unfortunately nosey investigators who were presented the options of career advancement “in the field,” all the way to officers of the Air Force who thought that the career prospects were better in the new service. So long as the new recruits recognize that their old lives and old careers were over, the Security Forces have been fairly indiscriminate. That is starting to change as units come up to full strength. Active Recruiting The Security Forces established recruiting and training stations in direct competition with the Army’s almost as soon as the formations were recognized by the Emperor; some believe this indicates that the Minister of Information may have been planning this move for quite some time. Early in the Tolkeen War, these stations were manned either by police recruiters, or Army personnel, neither of them very enthusiastic about their new duties. This changed considerably as the war wound down and the first full-fledged Security Forces recruiters went into business, full of war stories and medals gained in Tolkeen. Because the recruiting standards are somewhat more stringent than those of the police or Army, the SecFor recruiters, even accounting for the standard practices of recruiters everywhere, are more selective about their recruits. Emergency Recruiting After the winter of 109-110, the Division command staff authorized emergency recruiting, essentially dissolving the division into recruiting teams sent to frontier outposts to gather what personnel they could, over and above a set minimum quota for each unit. This achieved mixed results, with some sub-units replacing far more by direct recruiting than through the usual replacement stream. The result was an inconsistent level of training, with indoctrination and discipline generally less sound among the emergency recruits, but battlefield skills generally lower among the "professionals." Rear-Area Training Rear-area training is conducted at the division’s official headquarters in central Missouri. The exact location of the division’s training and equipment depot is classified. Memoranda and instructions refer to the location as Leavenwood. The division runs two types of training programs, initial and integrative. Initial training consists of four months of intensive infantry training, focused on weapon skills and physical training, and is taught by members of the division seconded from front-line service. Integrative training is meant to turn groups of infantrymen into squads; this is because divisional policy thus far has been to replace squads if possible, and restructure depleted units in the field to combine depleted squads into veteran units. Noteworthy Sub-Units 5th Security Forces Regiment "Death's Head" Death's Head Reconnaissance Battalion